General News of Sunday, 6 November 2016

Source: rainbowradioonline.com

We're not aware of any contracts signed between EC and telcos - NPP

Martin Adjei Mensah-Korsah Martin Adjei Mensah-Korsah

The Electoral Commissioner, Mrs. Charlotte Osei yesterday told BBC’s Akwasi Sarpong that the Electoral Commission (EC) will be working with the various telecommunication companies (Telcos) in the country, regarding the electronic transmission of election results.

According to her, the EC has signed contracts with the Telco Companies to assist and that, the EC will soon demonstrate that with the Intra-Party Committee (IPAC).

Mrs. Osei explained, the results of the presidential polls will be faxed to Accra, transmitted electronically with the help of the Telco Companies that have signed contracts with the EC.

The process she stressed, will ensure credibility; transparency and a clean process which she indicated will be secured.

However, Mr. Martin Adjei Mensah-Korsah says the party is unaware of the contract the EC has signed with the Telco companies.

The EC recently announced the cancellation of the tender process to select an IT Firm for the transmission of results electronically in the December polls.

The EC shortlisted some companies who were hoping to electronically transmit the results some few months ago.

However, a few weeks after their invitation, the tender process was cancelled.

The commission, in a short statement explaining the reason for the cancellation said: “Tender process for the electronic result transmission system has been cancelled because none of the tenders met the set criteria.”

According to Martin Adjei Mensah Korsah who is the Director of Elections for the opposition New Patriotic Party (NPP), the reformed proposal was for the transmission of results from collation centres [constituency level] and not from the polling centres as the lady chairperson told the BBC.